Don’t you love when this happens?

David Kochel, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Iowa campaign strategist, appeared at a pro-marriage-equality event in Des Moines to make the conservative case for same-sex marriage.

You will remember, of course, how Romney ran a staunchly anti-LGBT campaign, to the point of telling a gay veteran in person he did not believe in marriage equality. Not so for Kochel:

He shared an anecdote with The Huffington Post about being invited to speak at his son’s high school government class during the campaign. Several students brought up the subject of same-sex marriage. “I answered the questions very honestly,” he recalled. “‘Well, for me personally,’ I said, ‘I think that rights need to be extended to all people regardless of orientation.’ And several of the students started nodding their heads, and began to question why so many in my party don’t have this position.”

After the class, Kochel said, he took his son aside. “He said to me, ‘Dad, you know I have friends whose parents are gay, and I just don’t see anything wrong with it, and nobody I know sees anything wrong with it.’”

This is refreshing.